Week 14: Clear RAID storage techniques

This week’s study topic was “Enterprise Computing.” In enterprise computing, storage methods or techniques can hinder an enterprise’s ability to thrive or it can be an advocate to the company’s success. Since computer storage is such a crucial element of the business, companies tend to seek out the best techniques for storage. Some storage techniques discussed in week fourteen’s topic were the RAID techniques.

An enterprise needs storage techniques that have a very great storage capacity, a high performance rate, and preferably a system for backing lost data. We learned about three different types of RAID techniques this week for this kind of storage: RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 5. First of all, RAID is short for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. A RAID storage technique is basically just a collection of storage disks that act as one.

RAID 1 is the “mirroring” technique. This means that every block of data is written on two separate drives that act as one drive. Therefore if there is a failure within one driver there is always a backup, and also the system will still run at full speed. Raid 0 is the “striping” technique. This technique uses two or more drives. In this technique the blocks of data are spread out on multiple disks, so if one disk fails the whole system fails. The reason why people take a chance on this method is because it is really fast. RAID 5 is kind of like RAID 1 and RAID 0 combined. This technique requires three or more disks. All disks except one have the data spread out onto them. The remaining disk mirrors the others for backup purposes.

Secure E-mail Project

E-mail Scandal at the University of East Anglia

Above is a link to an article about the "climategate" email scandal. The gist of the story is that a server was hacked at the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia. The successful hacking led to the theft of thousands of e-mails that were later leaked onto the Internet. Some of these e-mails contained controversial information that made it seem as if many climate scientists had been involved in fraudulent behavior. Whether the e-mails verified fraudulent behavior is irrelevant to this blog post, but the fact that the e-mails were stolen in the first place is significant. I don't understand why a hacker was able to simply gain access to all e-mails at this University's Climate Research Unit after hacking the server. Why wasn't a better encryption system implemented if they knew they were sending and receiving e-mails with controversial and secretive information? I suppose if someone hacks a server they automatically have access to everyone's public key in that network, and any encryption system is useless.

Week 13: Clear Malware

Most everyone who is a regular computer user has become familiar with malware over the years. Malware is short for malicious software. These malicious softwares are designed and operated to infiltrate a user's computer and cause some kind of harm to the computer. The most common kinds of malware are viruses, worms, trojans, and rootkits.

Computer viruses are probably the most common case of malware. A computer virus will find a way to infiltrate a computer's security, and once the security is breached it will alter the way a computer operates without consent from the user. Once a worm finds a way into a computer it will repeatedly copy itself onto the computer's memory or network. Then you could imagine the effects the user feels from the worm's constant replication. It could use up all available memory, therefore slowing down the computer immensely or maybe even shutting the computer down altogether. Both viruses and worms will eventually spread from computer to computer but the trojan malware only affects a single computer and will not spread to others. The trojan will present itself as a harmless program, therefore tricking the computer into allowing it access. Another type of popular malware is the rootkit. Once a rootkit is installed onto a computer it allows a user from a remote location to basically control the infected computer.

Malware is a huge concern for a user when thinking about the health of their computer and the privacy of important information; but usually if a user takes proper care of their computer this problem can be stifled. A user should make proper updates to security often, and install a firewall and reputable anti-malware program.

Week 12: Muddy Information System

To be honest I don't really understand much of what's going on in this week's topic. Here is what I have got from learning about information systems. The definition of an information system is that it's a collection of hardware, software, data, people, and procedures that work together to produce quality information. Basically what that means to me is that an information system is a company's method of distributing, using, producing, and modifying information. It is a company's way of executing activities that have to do with using computer data.

There is a systems development team and a systems analyst that oversees a company's information system and system development life cycle. The system development life cycle is comprised of planning, analysis, design, implementation, operation, support, and security. A systems analyst basically coordinates and manages the activities for people in the systems development team. After the information system is planned out, designed, and implemented the systems development team operates the system, supports the users, and makes sure the system is secure. What this means to me is that the systems development team makes sure the system is running smooth and makes sure proper changes are made when and if they need to be made within the system.

Extra Credit: Avatar

This was by far the most enjoyable extra credit assignment that was available. I chose to use the website http://www.meez.com/ to create my avatar. I went to a couple of the different sites, and Meez was the easiest site to use and it also had the most options for creating a unique avatar. Meez has four different steps to creating an avatar: body features, dress features, applications, and background. The body and dress features are just as it sounds; this is where a user decides what the avatar looks like. The applications feature is pretty unique from other avtar creating sites. This feature is where a user can have their avatar perform a variety of different movements; for example, a user can make their avatar perform a variety of dance moves. The background feature is obviously the feature where the user can put a unique background behind their avatar, and it's where I got this background of the White House.

Database Project

I hadn’t used Microsoft Access since about 2002 or 2003, so I learned a lot from this project. The last time I used this application was in the eighth grade, but I don’t know why instructors stopped teaching Access in class because it is very useful in the business world. Many companies have many recurring customers, and in result many companies have a lot of information on customers due to recurrence and good relationships. There are many instances when the company would need to sort and organize this massive amount of data, and Microsoft Access Is perfect for that. For example, what if the company wants to send out promotions to their customers but only a specific demographic of customers? Their customer database must be sorted to filter in only the customers that fit that demographic.

A really good way to increase the functionality of any Access database is by modifying the field properties. We didn’t really have to modify any field properties for this project but I did anyway. For example, we had over 1,000 gym member in the project database. When entering this much data into the system any assistance is beneficial. So I used “input mask” on both the zip code field and the home phone number field. Instead of a home phone number being ten numbers in one row (8632945465), it appeared as (863) 294-5465 as I was entering the data. There are many more beneficial applications of the field properties. For example, you can edit how many characters can be used in a field with the “field size” property. You can edit the format of any field’s text so it would appear differently. If a field is crucial information you can edit its property to be a required field. The benefits that can be obtained from field property modification are infinite.

Week 11: Muddy Microsoft Access

Microsoft Access is the one Microsoft Office application that I’ve had very little experience using. Basically it’s a lot like Microsoft Excel in the sense that is used to store large amounts of data. In other words, it is a database. Access is more convenient than Excel when it comes to organizing a colossal amount of data into related groups called fields.

All data within Access is stored in tables. Each column within a table contains a specific field of unique information. The way a user interacts with the data in Access is via a query. While using a query, a user can perform four basic operations on the data: create, retrieve, update, or delete. This really is where Access has the advantage over other databases, like Excel, because here you can sort data in relational fields for easier data updating or data retrieval. After data is entered into the database it can be manipulated into reports for use in presentations.